I found myself, like many people, waiting and staring at their e-mail accounts waiting for that “Cataclysm Invitation” letter, but of course all I got was spam mail. However, I have come to a point now that I really don’t care. I get frustrated by bugs and poor mechanic structure anyway. And there’s nothing like falling in love with something and then having it change on you. So, I’d rather just read.

I have come to the final decision that I’m going back Badger Bear/ Oomkin Boomkin for cataclysm. Yea, I have been getting back in the swing lately, but have been ran into by being sick or in pain, or throwing myself back into that disappointment that I faced back in TBC. But as you probably have figured so far, I always find my way back to the Druid, some how. I guess my hindsight is too good. Memories of Dancing as a Boomkin in UBRS, I haven’t seen happier times since.

I have come to the conclusion I will do it as long as I try and trick myself into playing something else. We should play what we enjoy and what we are good at. If both fall into the same class, more reason to stay. To all those who told me “Bear tanks suck! Warriors and Paladins (now DKs) are better!” or “You should do something else Like Healing!” go fudge yourselves. The Happy Badger is here to stay!

Ak did make sure that I researched all my options. I’d have to say I’m not exactly pleased with the Bear changes but not discouraged either.

Talents look awesome besides Pulverize. There would have to be a few conditions to meet before it would be viable. Reason is Lacerate (Dot) at 5 stacks is a vary nice consistent threat generator. To remove this, it would have to give you enough threat to counter the time rebuilding the Lacerate stack. (Lacerate Applying produces less TPS than that of Lacerate Dot). To me, this could be a really good Devastate ability for Bear tanks. Applying Lacerate, you can continue using lacerate ability in your rotation, but use Pulverize in the form of a reapplying effect with extra threat and damage.

Wonder if I made sense saying it that way. I’m saying, still have us stack lacerates the old fashion way, but after we reached 5 stacks, we use “Pulverize” which instead of consuming the lacerate stack, reapplies the effect as if we smacked them with an insta-5 lacerates. Pulverize would only refresh, not add to the stack. Ugh, I’m probably sounding off.

I heard thru the grapevine that Tanks will be doing less damage in cataclysm which forces tanks to fight for threat. I agree with this, taking Less damage and holding agro should be the only 2 concerns of a tank (besides NOT standing in fire).

They also said that they wanna get away from the “Mashing buttons” problems of tanking currently. Honestly, I feel the only time I “mash buttons” is when I’m AoE tanking. Yep! Swipe + Maul(Glyphed) and maybe a Zerk + Mangle combo or all together. But single target tanking for the Bear to me is not per-say in any way Mashing. Having 6 abilities or Spells in your rotation isn’t really mashing, You still have to go threw a sequence of events to produce a good amount of threat. But if they want to go down the route of adding more spells to our arsenal, have ’em Add to it, not take away!

How would this take away you ask? Many people along the grapevine have said this would be the rotation if Pulverize would be viable. Mangle + Faerie Fire (Feral) + Lacerate(to 5) (throwing in Mangle and FFF when off cooldown) + Pulverize. Rinse and Repeat. That’s less of a rotation that we currently have for single target tanking. It’s more “mashing” prone, and to be honest, boring.

I’ll stop complaining about this, It could change! Right?

Another ability that I was very excited to see was called Skull Bash. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but I guess we are moving in the right direction. Reading what it says, it seems like the they changed the old Feral Charge. And Split it in two spells. Yep, the the new Feral Charge will not longer interrupt the target.

I was hoping for a ranged Silencing ability like the rest of the tanks. It’s kind of annoying to be in UP. Pulling those groups before the last boss, you pull with FFF and duck around the corner, and watch the DPS run past you into the room with the mobs. Complete /faceplam.

It doesn’t hurt me in the way is I love my Feral Charge! To the point I use it In combat and just for kicks. (charging after being punted back, mid air, makes me a happy badger… really! Ask Ak!) It has set me on a coarse that says only good tanking classes have it! Yes, pig headed of me to say something like that but well, what I say in my mind is fine. AND! I tank along side Ak quite a bit (he’s an awsome tank regardless of the class he plays so far he’s done Warrior, DK, Paladin, and dipped in to the Badger world just a bit) and his main tank is a paladin! The girliest of ALL tanking classes! (YEA! you herd me!)

Even though, there’s a lot of things on our Christmas wish list. I’m hoping at least a few will be answered some day. Until then, we will just have to continue to be as resourceful as we have always been.

Have you ever had something itching in the back of your mind? “Why in the HELL is my dps so low?” happened to be mine.

I researched.. I found out new blogs that maybe would help me out. All I found was misleading. I should have had known better!

I found out my Rotation was wrong, my glyphs wear wrong, and my main hand was wrong, and you know if I DPS better with an addon helpin’ me out.. I’m gonna stick with it and try not to be bad ass. ‘Cause I’m far from bad ass.

I had been running around for maybe the last few months with Abomination Knuckles in my main hand. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a very nice fist weapon. Stats are just inline with that of what an Ehance Sham needs. (still wonder why it’s 1 weapon and it’s name is plural). However, I had Frost Giant’s Cleaver sitting in my bank. I actualy replaced this with the Abom Knuckles. Thinking the stats where better suited for me, completely looking over one tiny but big factor.

Weapon damage is probaly one of the biggest things for ehancement shaman. Regardless of the stats. Why?

Increases general white damage (witch is Number one damage out putter for Ehance Shams)

Increases Windfury proc damage. That’s a number 2 or 3 on the list.

Increases Mana Gain from Shamanistic rage.

I mean… those are a few of the most important factors of the spec, and I was a Nublit. I’m too ashamed to post numbers here… but I went from 10k easy to 8… just to give you an idea.

Another thing I had been doing wrong was running around with Windfury Glyph, i had originally had flame shock glyph. With the DPS loss from having the Abom Knuckles in my main hand. I thought maybe something had changed. So this is what I researched. Everyone (but mmo-champion and EJ) said Windufry Gyph was better. How wrong I was to fallow. It was better way back when (Ulduar/Naxx days) and I knew that. /facepalm

With that done, I dropped flame shock from my rotation, and dropped Shock and Awe as well. Witch in the end left me to, Forgot magma totems, flame novas, Shields, and screwing up my rotations big time.

I guess, it all leads to a domino effect. from now on I think I’ll be more careful and less head over heels for upgrades, I’ve learned my lesson.

From Inside the Raid is well my therioy crafting that takes place while I’m in a raid. Hopefuly I get it done with all bad jokes and sex talk. From Inside the Raid also comes via Itouch. So I’ll try to correct some of the spelling, but well Ipod spell check is a bit, Lacking. And YAY for random Screen shot, we where actualy on Blood Queen, was too busy typing to take a screen shot of that though. >>; and don’t mind my DPS.. that was from a fail attempt.

One thing I have always hated was waiting around for raids to start.

I knew that pre expac blues were coming. I never thought that it would start six months before.

So the teal question is; why?

Are other realms feeling this too?

Well in thought this could be more then just pre-expansion blues.

I, myself, am feeling rather borde of the current icc. 25s are just for gear and 10s are for progresstion. Well, yes the idea is to progress threw 25s as well but there is less headache in 10s as we all should know.

Besides some encounters are easier in 10s than 25s and Vic verse. Running both in one week dose seem to make this less enjoyable.
Anyway that dissution is for another post.

Back to the topic. What are all the possibilities that could make a guild or a realm drop in population?

Fatige. My biggest poblume with this expantion. At frist blizz had the idea. 1 big raid and 3 siders. After that we only had 1 true raid. This leaves out options, thus in the end
raiding becomes mundain.

Holiday. When things that involve out door activies, most big winter holidaies and all of summer holidaies.

The release of something that will put all that has been done up untill that point pointless. Like, normaly but not sacluded to expantions. ‘cuase why continue to work for somthing when it
well be unessisary.

Like all guilds, I think, the last one could be put on us. It’s purly up to the person to deside how much “failire” (Yes, those are really sapposed to be Air Quotes…) one can take.

The biggest reason I think this is happaning is becuase too much ICC. I mean, at least for myself, I raid at least…(Moment to count) 5 nights a week. 3 in 24s and 2 in 10s.
So for Icc bordum I think that’s at least the biggest case. I wish there was more todo these days.

That’s it for today.

Oh the biggest reason there hasn’t been any posts for a while is becuse they get to about 95% completion and then I forget about them. Sorry all!

Sorry for the lack of interesting titles, but I really just can’t come up with an interesting one for what I have been doing since last post.

Lets start with the fact I got Sero to Northrend! Yay go me… and so I have spend countless hours looking up what to do with her next. I have to say that Shadow Priest and Lock have been probably the easiest to level classes, it’s almost boring.

Dot Dot Drain…Drain… Life tap.. start again. but well it’s fast and I’m showing a bit of interest in the class it’s self. I hope it get’s a bit more interesting when I actually have to worry about DPS.

I herd that affliction is the highest dps, but ranked one of the hardest spec/classes to play. I guess I’ll just have to check it out a bit more to come to a conclusion.

Now that I have plenty of time on my hand with my recent departure from my ex-guild. I have been bored out of my mind! I have been left doing:

Dailies

Alt Leveling

Working on Off Set

Rep grinds

Professions

Achievements

and much more

I will admit. I have been making quite a good number of gold since I no longer have to pay the 100g repair bill (on a good day). But who actually thinks doing those kinda things “fun”. It’s kinda masochistic. I will be honest here, it really isn’t that much difference to do your dailies every day then to raid. Only thing that makes one better than the other is[Epics].

So how dose one manage to get these things done with out pulling their hair out?

Hello interwebz! I was working on some elaborate post but I took a brake to mess around with my new UI. I came along a post on WoWI. I wont link to the post.. since its pretty obvious and I found it on the front page, but I don’t wanna give any one at WoWI any greeph.. Besides.. I think they handled it quite nicely. So we will call the poster.. DephKnight and I’m at loss for words on his final paragraph:

“PLEASEEEEEE !! Someone do this, so sick of spamming several buttons and making decicions while in combat at the same time as I am supposed to read raid chat and answer and keeping track of healt/RP and what the boss does and what others do … As you can see it is an mission impossible for a human
to play a game that needs that much attention ..” – Def Knite

Like many other people at WoWI, I thought he was joking. In the post he was asking for a UI to act like a Bot. To basically do his rotation as a human would, while he did every thing else. It’s a shocking state to see this since well.. I do all those things with one hand behind my back and a sandwich in my mouth, while watching tv. Okay maybe not the Watching tv thing.. I tend to zone out when I do that. One replier did state it perfectly we will call him LeetMage

“I suggest turning off the TV shows. Stop trying to play your gaming console at the same time and just focus on your raid/group” – 1337|V|463